N@tschool keynote Bart Rienties_17-06-2010

Welcome
to Maastricht University

N@tschool gebruikers dag 2010
Keynote Online Communities
Dr. Bart Rienties

School of Business and Economics

Samenvatting

Online Communities werken als:
• Duidelijk doel
• Kritische massa van
participanten
• Sterke motivatie van
participanten
• Sterke links
• Waardevolle links
• Kreatieve links


Wie is er lid van een online
community?
• LinkedIn?
• Facebook?
• Hyves?
• Wiki?
• Newsgroup/discussion forum
community?


LinkedIn vs Facebook for
finding a new job
• Growing importance of internet on job-searcher’s
strategies (Fountain, 2005).
• Job-search strategies ‘formal’, ‘informal’ and
‘direct application’.
• Informal job-search strategies include the use of
personal contacts, such as relatives, friends and
co-workers whom act as referrals and provide
‘inside’ information on job openings.
• Informal search saves on search costs.

Rienties, B., Tempelaar, D. T., Pinckaers, M., Giesbers, B., Lichel, L., (2010). The effects of online social networks sites on receiving job information, International
Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, XX (XX), p. XX-XX.

Theoretical framework I
Strength of weak ties
• Granovetter (1974): strength of a social relationship or tie
affects job-searchers by amount + quality of job-information.
• A tie is defined as ‘weak’ when personal contacts see each
other ‘occasionally’.
• Such a weak tie can have a bridging function.

H1. SNS members who have received information about job
openings via their SNS have a greater amount of weak ties in
their SNS than SNS members who have not received
information about job openings via their SNS.


Theoretical framework II
Structural Holes
• Burt (1992):individuals gain more from social networks as structural hole
• Structural holes are those places in between networks where relations or bridges
are absent and links do not exist,

H2. SNS members who did receive information about job openings via their SNS have a
higher network entrepreneur personality index than SNS members who have not
received information about job openings via their SNS.


Theoretical framework III
Social Capital Theory (Lin, 2001)
Social Capital: value of the resources that off- or online social
network ties hold:

1. Embedded resources facilitate information flows reducing
transaction costs to find job opportunities.
2. Social ties may influence recruiters who play a critical role in
decisions involving the job searcher.
3. Social ties may be conceived by a recruiter as certification of
social credentials.
4. Provides emotional support but also public acknowledgement
of one’s accessibility to certain sources.

H3. SNS members who have received a job offer via their SNS
hold higher levels of resources then SNS members who have
not received a job offer via their SNS.


Table 1 Descriptive statistics of SNS membership,
network contacts and information about a job opening
Non-
Students Manager Manager F
LinkedIn Members hip (in %) 49.38 81.81 89.86 35.064**
Facebook Members hip (in %) 87.65 75.00 52.53 20.287**
Contacts in LinkedIn 63.77 78.14 120.29 3.882*
Contacts in Facebook 184.07 120.72 122.45 4.360*
W eak contacts in LinkedIn 41.55 57.04 91.37 3.473*
W eak contacts in Facebook 149.35 94.50 99.55 3.975*
Clos e contacts in LinkedIn 22.23 21.10 29.23 1.839
Clos e contacts in Facebook 34.72 26.23 22.50 1.801
Network Entrepeneur Pers onality Index 5.75 5.52 5.62 0.570
Job information received (in %) 22.22 32.95 42.39 5.554**
A NOVA with s tudents (N= 81), non-managers (n=88) and managers (n=217)
**Coefficient is s ignificant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*Coefficient is s ignificant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).


Table 3 Comparison of receivers of information about a job opening
and non-receivers
No n -
Stu d en ts M an ag er M an ag er
Lin ked In M emb ers h ip (in % ) 2.832* * 2.578* 3.904* *
Faceb o o k M emb ers h ip (in % )
Co n tacts in Lin ked In 3.414* * 3.061* *
Co n tacts in Faceb o o k
W eak co n tacts in Lin ked In 2.683* 3.205* * 2.304*
W eak co n tacts in Faceb o o k
Clo s e co n tacts in Lin ked In 2.272* 2.285* 4.357* *
Clo s e co n tacts in Faceb o o k
Netwo rk En trep en eu r Pers o n ality In d ex 1.756 † 2.681* *
A NOVA F-v alu e o f jo b -in fo receiv ed v s n o jo b -in fo receiv ed
with s tu d en ts (N= 81), n o n -man ag ers (n =88), an d man ag ers (n =217)
* * Co efficien t is s ig n ifican t at th e 0.01 lev el (2-tailed ).
* Co efficien t is s ig n ifican t at th e 0.05 lev el (2-tailed ).
† CoB., Tempelaar, D.tT.,Business and Economicsof online(2-tailedsites on receiving job information, International
School of is s ig n ifican t at th e 0.10 lev el
Rienties,
efficien Pinckaers, M., Giesbers, B., Lichel, L., (2010). The effects social networks
).

Thus….

• For LinkedIn members: close ties (b = 0.20) and weak ties (b
= 0.18)
• The structural holes hypothesis is rejected in our sample.
• Neither tie-strength nor network entrepreneurial personality
index good predictor for students
• For non-managers, weak-ties (b = 0.44) significantly predict
receiving information about job openings
• For managers it is primarily close ties (b = 0.27)

Thus use LinkedIn and your close
contacts to find a new job ☺


Agenda
School ofnu online communities?
1. Wat zijn Business and
Economics online communities in
2. Hoe werken
praktijk
3. Wat zijn gekende problemen van
communities of learning?
4. Welke vormen van communities of
learning werken wel? Resultaten van 2
studies
5. Conclusie en discussie


+ e-book system


3. Common problems in community of learning
learning
1. Dynamics of community of learning are complex (De Laat
et al. 2007; Ahuja et al. 2003)
2. Most community of learnings actually perform differently
than anticipated (Alexander, 2006; Giesbers, Rienties, et al.,
2009) De Laat & Lally, 2004; Schellens & Valcke, 2005,
Rienties et al., 2009).
3. High degree of informal communication. Because of a lack
of formal rules, procedures, clear reporting relationships, and
norms, more extensive informal communication is required
(Ahuja et al. 1999, Rienties et al., 2009)
4. How to establish team cohesiveness, identity and ego
involvement (Van de Bossche et al., 2006)?
5. Role of learner complex (Williamson et al. 2006, Rienties et
al., 2009, Tempelaar et al., 2009)
6. Role of teacher in community of learning complex (Anderson
& Rourke, 2001), De Laat et al. 2007)


4. Major Research findings
• Effectiveness team problem solving is determined by how
well team members are communicating with each other
(Jonassen & Kwon, 2001, Rienties et al., 2009)
• Barron (2003) found that successful teams are able to create a
joint problem-solving space
• Focus of discourse should be broader than just cognitive
perspectives (Arts, Gijselaers, & Segers, 2002; Garrison,
Anderson, & Archer, 2000; Roschelle & Teasley, 1995; Van den
Bossche, Gijselaers, Segers, & Kirschner, 2006)
• teams have to make an effort in order to establish a dual-
problem space, where participants simultaneously contribute
both to the content space as well as the relational space
(Barron, 2003)


Study 1 Role of Motivation in CSCL
Subjects
• 100 participants were randomly assigned in six groups.
• The six groups had an average of 13.66 members (SD= 2.16, range = 11-
17) per team.
• The average age was 19 years and 45% of the learners were female.

Rienties, B., Tempelaar, D. T., Van den Bossche, P., Gijselaers, W. H., & Segers, M. (2009). The role of academic motivation in CSCL. Computers in Human Behavior,
25(6), 1195-1206.

Jonas central after 1st week ofweek 1:
Social interaction in discussions
9 With whom are6 do not participate
students participate, learners interacting?


Jonas, Veronica and Tutor 3 central in 6 weeks of discussions
14 students have participated, 1 student does not participate
Several students on outer ring of social interaction (Bernard, Felix, Philip, Christina, Elena,
Social interaction in week 1-6
Sandra, Jonathan, Bart)


METHOD: integrated multi-method
approach
Individual contribution to discourse using Content Analysis
• Content Analysis on social and cognitive discourse of Veerman & Veldhuis-Diermanse
(2001), whereby a distinction is made between non-task related (Veerman NTR: 1
planning; 2 technical; 3 social; 4 non-sense) and task-related discourse activity
(Veerman TR: 5 facts; 6 experience/opinion; 7 theoretical ideas; 8 explication; 9
evaluation).
– Three coders independently coded all messages based on unit of meaning
– Students posted 2307 messages of which 2075 (90%)were considered as codeable (90%).
– The Cronbach alpha (α) 0.928, the Cohen’s kappa was 0.71, 0.71 and 0.68

Position of individual within team using Social Network Analysis
• Degree of centralisation of each individual of all communication as well as higher
cognitive communication;
• Size of ego density network of each individual.
• Higher cognitive degree of centralisation using results CA
• Higher cognitive size of ego density network using CA

Academic motivation Scale of Vallerand et al. (1992):
• Three aspects of intrinsic motivation (IMTK, to know; IMTA, to accomplish; IMES, to
experience stimulation)
• Four other scales of decreasing level of intrinsic, and an increasing level of extrinsic
motivation (EMID, identified regulation; EMIN, introjected regulation; EMER, external
regulation; AMOT, amotivation).
– Response-rate 93%, Cronbach alpha for the seven items ranged from .760 to .856
– Learners who are high on intrinsic motivation relative to all other students as “intrinsically motivated learners”.
– Learners who are relatively high on extrinsic motivation are labelled as “extrinsically motivated learners”.
– Learner can have both high levels of intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation.(90%).

25(6), 1195-1206.

Paul, Jonas and Chris central in higher cognitive discourse in week 1-6
11 Higher contribute to higher cognitive discourse, 1-6:
students Cognitive Discourse in week 4 students and 1 tutor do not.
Who interacts with whom on a higher cognitive level?


Overall findings study 1
1. Large differences between students with respect
to amount and quality of discourse
2. Differences in contributions explained (in part)
by motivation
1. Intrinsically motivated students contribute
more to task-related communication
2. Intrinsically motivated students have more
connections
3. Intrinsically motivated students are more in
the center of the social network
4. Extrinsically motivated students contribute
“on average” but lower on social
contributions, which is important for group
development (Barron, 2003)
5. Extrinsically motivated students are scattered
throughout the network

25(6), 1195-1206.

Study 2 Increasing learning satisfaction
with webvideoconference
• Cohort 1 as described above (82 participants in 6 groups)
• Cohort 2:
– weekly videoconferences + discussion forums
– 69 participants in 5 groups

Instruments
• Academic Motivation Scale
• Prior Expectations of the course
• Perceived usefullness of course
– 33 questions of seven categories: assessment (four items), course design (six items); course
materials (three items); goals and tasks (four items); group collaboration (five items); instruction
by teacher (five items); and learning satisfaction (five items).

Giesbers, B., Rienties, B., Gijselaers, W. H., Segers, M., & Tempelaar, D. T. (2009). Social presence, web-videoconferencing and learning in community of learnings.
Industry and Higher Education, 23(4), 301-310.

Videoconferences vs. discussion
forums

Discussion Forum Videoconference t-test Cohen
M SD M SD difference d-value
Assessment 14.80 2.41 14.23 2.60
Course Materials 11.29 1.66 10.65 1.80 .058† .37

Course Design 24.69 2.59 23.76 2.48 .064† .36
Group Collaboration 18.24 3.34 17.42 3.28
Goals and Tasks 15.15 2.51 15.40 1.82
Instruction 19.53 2.13 20.57 2.09 .012* -.50
Learning Satisfaction 19.83 2.50 19.27 2.73
Independent sample T-test (2-sided) of Discussion forum (n=59) vs. Videoconference and Discussion forum (n=
*Coefficient is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed).
†
Coefficient is significant at the .10 level (2-tailed).


Overall findings study 2
1. Students videoconference not more satisfied
than students discussion forums
2. Students videoconference less satisfied with
course materials and course design
3. Students videoconference more satisfied with
instructional support


5. Conclusies
1. 80-20 rule
2. Sociale interactie in community of learnings
complex
3. Persoonlijkheid (motivatie)
4. Meer Social presence leidt niet automatisch
tot meer tevredenheid
5. Rol docent bepalend maar complex complex


5. Aanbevelingen

1. Kreeer een veilige omgeving vanaf het
begin
2. Wees een actieve coach van het begin
3. Let op persoonlijkheidsverschillen!
4. Kreeer een community voor
verschillende lerenden
5. Gebruik SNA en log-in data als early
warning system


Keynote adres Online Communities

18 juni 2010, Rotterdam

Bart.Rienties@maastrichtuniversity.nl
http://www.personeel.unimaas.nl/bart.rienties


N@tschool keynote Bart Rienties_17-06-2010

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N@tschool keynote Bart Rienties_17-06-2010